French Cuisine

by David SmithThursday, March 14, 2019

Bonjour et bienvenue,

Cuisine is the French word for kitchen, and today, I will be giving you a tour of a typical French apartment kitchen. I eat breakfast every day in the kitchen and have host family meals here three times per week, so I end up spending quite a bit of time here. Meals are important to the French. There are three important aspects to a good French night – good food, good drink, and good conversation. The kitchen is where those things happen!

Here’s a shot of the whole kitchen. As you can see, nearly all the space is utilized. The “hallway” look of a French kitchen is common. It tends to make maneuvering difficult – when all three of my apartment’s inhabitants are in the kitchen at once, moving around is like a dance.

First, we examine the fridge and freezer. My refrigerator always has this weird mustard-y smell, which probably comes from all the Dijon mustard that my host mom has. The fridge is as cramped as the kitchen itself. I share the bottom shelf of it with my host brother, which doesn’t leave me too much space. My half is signified by the red arrow. As you can see, I need to go shopping.

Next, the area to the right of the fridge. Here we can see the sink and washing machine. There are no dryers here. The clothes are hung out over the bathtub to dry. There is also no trash can. Rather, we put all the garbage into that black bag on top of the washer.

After you wash your hands at the sink, you dry them off using one of these aprons to the left of the refrigerator. Why we don’t just have a hand towel, I don’t know. I’ve never seen my host mom use either of these aprons as an apron, so I guess that’s just how it goes here. Also pictured are some of the various fridge decorations.

The stove and oven work very similarly to those in America. However, you have to remember that the temperature settings are in Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Wouldn’t want to burn your pizza.

Here’s the corner I use the most. It has the toaster, the water boiler, and the microwave. I’m going to have to buy a water boiler when I get back to the states – I’ve become completely addicted to tea.

Speaking of tea, here’s my absolutely stacked tea cabinet. My host mom keeps it stocked full of tea, so there’s no chance we’ll ever run out. Which is good.

This is the beloved bread and fruit corner. Bread and fruit make up over half of my diet.

Here, the table is set with my typical breakfast, full of fruit and bread. I developed the tendency of dipping bread in my tea. I’m not sure if that’s a French thing to do or not, but I do it anyway.

Finally, no kitchen anywhere would be complete without a bag full of other bags. In fact, the initial bag here overflowed, so my host mom got a basket full of bags full of bags. The French really like reusable bags, so it’s a good thing that we have so many of them.

I hope this gave you a bit more insight into what it’s like to live in France!